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Toxic Mold, No Heat, No Hot Water, Dangerous Conditions

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brendarogers

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Lake Tahoe Calif

I had a lease for 7 years in a commercial/residentail lease. We lived above our place of business for two year from 5/1/2005 to 2/23/2007 and noticed a smell of mold in 12/2005We saw some black stuff on the ceiling wall and we were told by Coldwell Banker and the owner it was from the bakery downstairs venting, and this was not true.
Roof leaked for 12 months, no hot water 90 days, no heat for over a year, bad electrical, moldy carpet, etc.
we contacted the building owner and Coldwell Banker, who was the property manager and they denied it was mold and refused to fix problems, we sent them letters after letters, all certified telling them to test the mold and other inhabitable problems, and there was alot of mold in the 5000 sq feet builing. The owner never wanted to test the mold and me and my daughter were always feeling ill, and she missed alot of school with headaches and vomiting for a year. The mold, no heat, no hot water, leaky roof, is documented with the City and the health department in 2005, 2006 and 2007 but no one forced him to test the mold and no one forced him to fix the property timely and said the place was uninhabitable.. I have letters from The realty company promising to send someone out since 2005, and even a letter to the owner from the realty company saying they better test the mold, and they never did. I finally got the air tested in Jan 2007 when I became more ill and my period stop. The test came back with 6 toxic molds! One was Aspergillius/peniccilium was at a high level, Styrboch, and other toxic molds that cause harms to humans. We went to the doctors with the mold report and the doctor said MOVE now. We moved our business and our lives and this almost ruined our lives. It cost us 10k to move! Now we are broke and our business has suffered. Coldwell Banker and the owner refused to help us move and left us on our own. I need a good lawyer and I have a 13 inch file with many letters from the city, from the health department, from me, and alot of photos from the past 2 years of the mold and the problems. We moved Feb 23, 2007. The mold was in the entire attic and the mold company said it took longer than two years to grow so extensively. Coldwell Banker told me that they told the owner NOT to lease the building , but he did anyway and they helped him!.
:mad:
 


Cvillecpm

Senior Member
MOLD litigation is a VERY SPECIFIC practice of law....I would say you would have to go to Sacramento or SF to find an attorney with sufficient expertise and resources to take on a mold case.

Most attorneys in a small town would be cautious before going against a large RE company like Coldwell Banker - you need to look into a larger attorney pool.

Ditto - why did it take you so long to move?
 

brendarogers

Junior Member
answer to why we waited so long

We put our life savings into moving to Tahoe from Southern Calif and put everything we had into the business. We just could not get up and move without money. We were told the mold was not toxic my the health department and Coldwell Banker and it was ok to live in. They were wrong ! We were stuck and were takin advantage of. We are just a small business and not rich.
 

Cvillecpm

Senior Member
You made poor choices from the beginning....so don't expect an experienced mold attorney to drop everything and try to bail you out.

You have moved and no longer have custody, care and control of the property so establishing that the building was the cause of your health issues may be hard to prove.
 

brendarogers

Junior Member
Why we took long to move

When we moved from So. Cal to Lake Tahoe we took our entire life savings to move and start a new business. There is also a limited business space in town for a kayak/ski shop. The city limits who can be where and there are not alot of options for moving, and we didnt have alot of money to move since we spent all of it opening a business. I wonder why one post said we made bad choices from the beginning? I beleive the owner and coldwell banker lied to us and didnt disclose problems with the building they knew about from the beggining. Once again, no one cares about the little guy.
 

Hot Topic

Senior Member
Sounds like you didn't do a whole lot of research before you moved if you committed your life savings to running a kayak/ski shop in a town where there was "limited business space."

There are lots of books and articles about running a small business, and lots of people willing to provide advice on the pitfalls. I doubt anyone recommends putting your life savings into a business without doing a heck of a lot of studying beforehand.
 

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